Re-energising Your Learners’ Resilience (Primary)
A school-wide online resource kit to help teachers develop and strengthen their students’ emotional learning behaviours.
Sixteen idea-rich packages of activities, organised in a growth framework: four key aspects of learners’ resilience, four key stages of learners growth addressed across four aspects of teaching and classroom practice.
A startling truth
Learning is impossible without resilience: that tendency to be ready, willing and able to lock onto learning – knowing how to work through difficulties when the pressure mounts or the going gets tough. Loss of resilience breeds a brittle and impatient attitude.
All these beliefs and anxieties can affect anyone. The massive disruption to education caused by COVID 19 and the growing hardships from the rising cost of living has meant many children have become disconnected from their former patterns of learning. Even the keenest are likely to have lost their edge of concentration while others are feeling adrift and appear unwilling to learn at all. Signs of stress such as anxiety, recklessness, depression and self-doubt, are likely to show themselves, and learning for many will have become a challenge – their Resilience being a casualty.
We know from research that resilience is the foundation of emotional tolerance and that without resilience in one form or another, learning is impossible. Time lost to learning cannot easily be recovered, catch-up is proving elusive.
But research also shows that a resilient frame of mind can be nurtured and developed by engaging classroom cultures tended by thoughtful teachers. It takes time but the sooner it starts the sooner the benefits start to show, with often surprising quick wins.
Re-energising Your Learners’ Resilience is a simple-to-use online resource for teachers in both primary and secondary schools anywhere. It draws on ideas teachers have developed for building their students’ resilience offering every teacher rapid access to classroom-focused material that will help revive, develop and grow students’ emotional learning behaviours.
A simple framework for a wide range of activity
Re-energising Your Learners’ Resilience addresses;
- four aspects of Resilience in students, across
- four levels of growth, with
- practical packages of ideas, across
- four aspects of teaching practice.
This four-by-four framework is presented in a simple grid, illustrated below.
How the resource is designed.
Find out more on how the resource is designed...
The resource has a big ambition covering…
1. The four aspects of Resilience, being able to;
- deal with being stuck, the strategies students can use for overcoming it
- manage distractions, ensuring continuing engagement with learning.
- rise to the challenge, learning to enjoy challenge and the satisfaction of triumphing over difficulty
- work towards goals, learning to design goals and pursue them with tenacity and independence
2. The four stages of growth for students developing their learning attitudes;
- from being unwilling to engage, saying ‘I can’t or I won’t ‘to asking for help, saying ‘show me, tell me’ (‘Lacks’ to ‘Receives’)
- from asking for help, saying ‘show me or tell me’ to trying for themselves, saying ‘I’ll try’ (‘Receives’ to ‘Responds,)
- from trying for themselves, saying ‘I’ll try’ to recognising the value, saying ‘I see why’ (‘Responds’ to ‘Values, )
- from recognising the value, saying ‘I see why’ to organising themselves to do it, saying ‘I’ll make sure’ (‘Values’ to ‘Organises’)
3. The four aspects of teaching to;
- devolve responsibility for learning to students (things you can give away)
- use a language to help students understand learning as a process (things you can say)
- devise classroom routines that will nurture resilience (things you can do every day)
- ensure the look and feel of the classroom serves to strengthen students’ resilience (things you can display)
Clicking on any one of the sixteen yellow cells will take you into the corresponding package. The pattern of these activities is consistent across all sixteen packages, so you will quickly become familiar with the approach.
Beyond the 16 cells of activities the framework also offers;
- Background know-how (the green cells along the bottom) summarising the sort of thing you need to know before tackling any particular column. It explains;
- the learning behaviour in question
- the stages of growth and how they work
- the components of a learning friendly classroom
- how to use two questionnaires. One that explores where your students are now. One that explores your current approach to classroom cultures. It would be useful to complete the questionnaires before seeking relevant activities.
- Emotional outcomes (blue cells on the right) summarise what learners might be like as a result of absorbing the feelings and action of the activities over time; the sort of changes you will want to look out for in your learners over the next few months.
Re-energising resilience, support for leadership teams
If the school is going to make the most of the ‘Re-energising‘ resource leaders will need to think about not only its potential in the classroom but how, at an operational level, it will best marry with the school’s beliefs and operating systems; it’s about managing the why, how, where and when questions across the school.
A helpful model
The ‘Re-energising’ resource is packed full of interesting and often new ideas for many teachers. As such it’s designed to be investigated and consulted collaboratively by the teachers across a school. Taking the resource on board throws up some vital leadership questions:
- how will the school benefit from this resource?
- what impact will it have on students?
- what sort of time and effort will staff need to make?
- what changes to the school’s operations will need to be accommodated?
To help structure these leadership and management issues we have applied the successful McKinsey 7-S Change Management Model which is often used to plan and implement organisational change.
The McKinsey 7-S Model combines seven components of an organisation that must work together for effective change management, namely its : Structure, Strategy, Staff, Style, Systems, Shared Values, and Skills.
Senior leaders will want to be sure that any organisational changes won’t act in adverse ways across their concerns in the school. A useful way of doing just that is by running the adoption of the ‘Re-energising’ resource through the 7- S model, focusing on making the most of the resource.
This resource is a companion to the online resource for teachers. It is designed to help senior leaders draw up an appropriate change management plan to ensure success.
Seven questions (and answers)
1. How many activities/ideas does the teachers’ resource give access to?
➡️ The resource has 110 big ideas. 25 to 30 for each of the four aspects of re-energising resilience.
2. Is this just a load of worksheets?
➡️ Not a worksheet in sight! These ideas are about deeper and more exciting ideas rather than disposable child-friendly worksheets. They touch on the whole culture of the classroom
3. Who can use the resource?
➡️ At the school’s choice, we will enrol every classroom practitioner (teachers and support staff) in the school.
4. Are the ideas practical for all age groups across the school?
➡️ Yes, all the ideas come from and have been tried out in schools. All age ranges are catered for as there is also a Secondary school version.
5. Will my school be able to afford it?
➡️ Yes, we think so — the price starts at £250 for a typical single-form entry primary school. The leaders’ support package is available at no extra cost.
6. How long will we have access — is it an annual subscription?
➡️ The resource will be made available for 2 years, after which you can renew for a reduced fee.
7. If we like these ideas, are there more of the same?
➡️ Yes indeed, this is just the tip of a big iceberg. Browse the ‘About BLP‘ and Professional Development pages for the big picture, or dip into Publications for more tasters.
Get in touch – we’re here to answer any questions you may have and are happy to discuss the specific requirements of your school.
Purchase gives a school a two-year site licence, entitling any member of staff to be signed up for access to the resources.
Order now – prices for the smallest schools start at just £250 per school with all teachers given access.Digital services access
Please note that if you pay by credit/debit card or PayPal, you will receive an automated email with details to allow the first user to sign in (using the email address provided with the order).
Customers requesting to pay on invoice will receive the same email as soon as possible, usually in under two working days.
With this purchase all of your staff can have their own access. Instructions for setting them up will be emailed to the address provided with the order.
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Purchase within the EU is not currently available, pending clarification of tax treatment.
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